WikiLeaks’ Battle to Stay Online

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. The site is now on a Swiss domain, hosted in France

WikiLeaks, the controversial website that has leaked embarrassing details of U.S. diplomatic correspondence, has spent the day in a game of international “whack-a-mole” fighting to keep its service up and running in the face of political and commercial pressures.

It has ended the day based on a site that appears to be Swiss, wikileaks.ch, but is actually in France, triggering a piece of political grandstanding by a French minister.

Industry Minister Eric Besson said France was planning to ban Wikileaks from French servers, saying the site was “criminal” and put innocent lives at risk. Very publicly he revealed an angry letter in which he urged officials to “indicate to me in the shortest time possible what actions can be taken to prevent this Web site from being hosted in France.”